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Edinburgh Castle. Built on the site of an extinct volcano, the history of one of Scotland's greatest landmarks is bloody, brutal and grimly fascinating. Jonathan Meades scales this most enduring of icons and visits its gentler neighbour, Holyrood Palace.

Magnificent mansion containing some surprising technological innovations. Cragside is a country house in the civil parish of Cartington in Northumberland, England. It was the first house in the world to be lit using hydroelectric power. Built into a rocky hillside above a 4 km² forest garden, it was the country home of Lord Armstrong and has been in the care of the National Trust since 1977.

Salisbury Cathedral boasts the highest spire in Britain. Jonathan Meades, who was raised in its shadow, returns to one of the country's finest medieval buildings. He wonders how an atheist can love a building dedicated to the propagation of medieval superstitions and fears.

Jonathan Meades ponders the exotic pleasure dome that is the bizarre legacy of the Prince Regent, George IV. Wild, theatrical and ostentatious, the folly is part Hindu, part Islamic, part Chinese, and wholly inauthentic.

For centuries the world's biggest military/industrial complex, the dockyard stood as a testament to the fear of invasion, particularly by France. As he hears the stories of those who have lived and worked there, Jonathan Meades considers its role as an instrument for the generation of dread.